It Takes Effort

Well, maybe. Maybe because when I was up in Cincinnati, I stayed at someone's house the first week I was there, and I was driving back and forth to the office just so that I wasn't interrupting their schedule and they were interrupting mine. And I got behind school buses a couple days, and I thought, ah, school is back in session. And I made a mental note, don't leave it this time. Leave ten minutes later, or leave ten minutes earlier, because it can be irritating to get behind a school bus and all the stops that it goes through.

But I was thinking about that school. I have to be a part of the Sabbath School of Roster.

We have 29, 29 teenagers and young people who will be in Sabbath School, and that doesn't include the infants that are with us. And so, everyone's back in school, and there's another year to learn and to study and go through all the rituals of school. And there are some other things that happened in Cincinnati. It was a good trip, but I learned some things about myself as well when I was in Cincinnati that may be thinking about a biotopic topic.

You know, I thought back to high school time and in middle school and in high school. I don't know if it's how they do things in Florida, but back in Indiana where I grew up, when you got your report card—that's kind of one of the key things in school, right? I mean, you got the first day of school, you got the last day of school, you get report cards. For many people, report cards are a good day, I guess, for some people. Maybe they don't want to see their report cards, but it's always good to see what your progress is. But our report cards had three sections on it. You know, as well, you just didn't get a grade for math or social studies or English. You got three grades. You got one for effort, one for conduct, and one for scholarship. The theory being that if you don't put effort into the class, you're not going to be able to get the grade. If you can't behave in class and you're not learning discipline, you're not going to be able to get the grade. And of course, you've got to be able to assimilate the knowledge and then give it back to the teacher in the way that he or she wants it. So whenever we would say what's your grade, we wouldn't just say A-A-A or just A or B or whatever. You would always kind of say, oh, I got an A-A-A, meaning A in effort, A in conduct, A in scholarship. And that was kind of drummed through. Everyone just kind of did that, and you know, what did this teacher give you? Boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. So I grew up with, you know, it takes effort, it takes good conduct, it takes scholarship in order to be a success in school. And I hope as our young people get into school that you will put and remember those things, put effort into school, you will get into things what you put, you will get out of things what you put into it, that you will behave and be an example to everyone around you and that you will take the time to study, assimilate that knowledge and do the assignments to the best of your ability. That, of course, is part of effort. You know, so that was always there. When I went to college, I learned about effort. When I think about effort, I think about those grades and those three things, you know, that we come across report guards.

When I went to college, I started as an ambassador and then I transferred to Indiana University, and I had to take an English Comp class at Ambassador. And I, you know, I can be a good writer if I want to be a good writer. And I didn't want to take the English Comp class again at IU. And so I tried my best to talk my way out of it, but Ambassador wasn't accredited, so I had to take it over again. So my attitude wasn't good going into it. So, but I thought, you know what, I can ace this. This isn't a problem. So the professor, you know, first day she gives us an assignment. She tells us what she wants to write about, you know, do this essay and boom, boom, boom. So I did it. And I have to be honest. I put no effort into it. Everything was grammatically correct. It was neatly written. It was a topic. It's like, you know what, I don't want to be here, and I know I can do this, too. Just do it.

So I handed it in. Didn't think much more about it. In a week I got it back. And in a grade I had said I just had not seen on papers before. It was handed back to me. And there was this big red D at the top of the paper. And I thought, I wasn't mad. I was embarrassed. I was actually embarrassed that I had a paper with that on it. So I kind of hid it and I thought, what on earth is this professor thinking about? This is not me.

So something is obviously wrong. But she had no comments in it at all. Nothing. Nothing.

It was D. And so I scheduled an appointment with her because she was very busy and said, you know, I don't get it. Everything in this paper is grammatically correct. There's no errors in it. Why did I get this grade? And she said, you know, I can tell that you can be a good writer if you want to. But I can tell you put no effort into that paper. None.

And she was right. I couldn't argue with her. And she said, that's the only reason I gave it to you, because I could see you put no effort into it. And it could have been much better if you had tried. I learned a lesson. Everything you do, even if you don't want to do it, put your effort into it. And I did the rest of that class and everything turned out okay. But when I think about effort, I think about some of those things that have come back into life. And I hope our young people learn some of those lessons about effort.

I hope you and I learn about effort as well. You know, we can talk about effort with our young people. We can talk about effort with our teenagers. We can talk about effort when we go into new jobs. But until the day we die, if we aren't putting effort into our calling, then we're going to get a grade that we don't want to get. God expects us, when He calls us, to put effort into the lives that He calls us to. Let's turn over to Luke.

Luke 13.

Luke 13 and verse 22. Read the Bible through a series of scriptures here that should be familiar to us, but we haven't read them. At least I haven't read them in services for a while. Luke 13 verse 22 says, speaking of Christ, He went through the cities and villages, preaching and journeying toward Jerusalem. And then someone said to Him, Lord, are there few who are saved? Are there few? Only few that are going to actually be in the kingdom that You're preaching about? And Christ said to them, Strive. Circle that word in your mind. Strive. Try. Put the effort into it. It's not something. Eternal life is a free gift from God. But if we don't put effort into the calling that God has given us, we will never receive it. The Holy Spirit is a gift from God when we repent and when we are baptized. But if we don't use the Holy Spirit, if we don't put effort into the life God has called us to, we won't enter through, He says, the narrow gates here. Strive to enter through the narrow gate for many. I say to you, we'll seek to enter. I won't be able. When once the master of the house has risen up and shut the door and you begin to stand outside and knock at the door, saying, Lord, Lord, open for us. And he will answer and say to you, I don't know you, where you're from. And you'll begin to say, we ate and drank in your presence. We taught and you talked in our streets. I was there every Sabbath.

I was there at the Holy Days. I know who you are. He'll say, no, I don't. You didn't live the life that I called you to. But he'll say, I tell you, I don't know you, where you're from. Depart from me, you workers of iniquity. And then for everyone who doesn't put effort into the calling that God has given them, everyone who squanders the opportunity that God has given us, the next verse speaks to them. And hopefully that's no one in this room. There will be weeping and gnashing of teeth when you see Abraham and Isaac and Jacob and all the prophets in the kingdom of God and yourselves thrust out. None of us wants that to be any of us here or anyone. In verse 30, a caution. We think that we've been in the church a long time. We've been keeping the Sabbath for 20, 30, 40, 50, 60 years.

Been to every holy day. Done everything the way that God said. But maybe we're just coasting and thinking we're a good Christian, just like I thought. I know how to write. I don't have to put really any more effort into this. Just do it. Make sure it's grammatically correct and send it in. If you're mailing in your Christianity, verse 30, because you've been around for a long time, verse 30 may speak to you and may speak to me. And we should take Washington of it. Indeed, there are last who will be first, and there are first who will be last. God doesn't look at the longevity of how long we've been in the church.

He looks at the effort, and He looks at the results of that effort and His Spirit, and that's yielding to Him that's there in our everyday lives. We have to put effort into it. We have to put effort into it. Let's go over also to Acts 24. Acts 24, verse 16.

Let's begin in verse 14 and get the context of what Paul is saying here. He says in verse 24, verse 14, This I confess to you, that according to the way which they call a sect, I worship the way they call a sect, he says, because people will use derogatory terms when they can to discredit the truth, the way which they call a sect, so I worship the God of my fathers, believing all things which are written, and the law, and in the prophets.

I have hope in God, which they themselves also accept, and there will be a resurrection of the dead, both of the just and the unjust. This being so, Paul says, I myself always strive to have a conscience without offense for God and men. God gives us the power. God gives us the spirit. Paul's trove. He tried. He put effort into changing the way he thought, changing the way he was, making sure that he, God, was transforming him into who God wanted him to be, not holding tight to who he was, not holding tight to his own beliefs and his own ideas. But as God taught, as God led, as his Holy Spirit opened his mind, he accepted what God had to say, just like you and I do. We all may have things that we kind of don't want to let go of, but when God opens our minds to do it, we have to let go of it.

We seek His truth. We seek His will. We seek to be the way He wants us to be, not the way that we want to be. Paul said that. Today I don't want to focus so much on conduct and scholarship, two of those three grades, but I do want to talk about effort, because it takes effort to be a Christian. It takes effort to be part of God's church. It takes effort if we're going to be in God's kingdom. What we put into our calling is what we'll get out of it. Galatians 6, 7, and 10 tells us, what you reap, what you sow, you will reap.

What we put into our calling, the effort we put into it, is what we will get out. Can't fool God, can't mock God. He knows our hearts, and He knows what effort we put into our lives on Sabbath, but also the other seven days of the week.

So I'm not going to go through a test. Mr. Stevens talked about some things that we do at the Feast, and he talked about taking the time to study and pray. It's very easy at the Feast to, with all the things going on, to say, I just don't have time, don't have time. Services are too early. I don't have time to pray this morning. We're in church every day. I don't need to pick the Bible up, pick it up in the there. That's enough.

We shouldn't have that attitude. We have to try. We have to put effort into it. You know, when I was in Cincinnati this time, I mentioned that one of the things I learned, you know, we get up, and when we're home, we have our routines. And it's very nice when we have our routines. I get up in the morning, and I know when I'm going to pray. I know where I'm going to pray. I know when I'm going to study. I know when I'm going to study.

I know where I'm going to study. You know, and I have the places all set out for that.

But when you're away from home, and when you're in someone else's house, and you don't have the same schedule that you do at home. You don't have the same rooms that you have available at home. And it was, I had to put some effort into making time to pray, making time to study. Because when you're up there, you start early in the morning, and you know, there's the dinner at night, and usually at the end of the day, you just want to fall into bed and that's it. One night, or one day, I find myself thinking, you know what? This is just too hard. This is just too hard. I'm not even going to worry about praying. I'm not going to be, I'm not going to worry about praying today or tomorrow until I get to a place where I can do that. That's not the first time in my life that I've had that thought. Later on that night, I woke. And the thing that was in my mind is it takes effort. You got to put the effort into it. You can't just slink out of it and say, it's just too inconvenient. It's just too hard. I just can't find the time. I just can't find the place. There's this schedule and that schedule. It takes effort, and you got to make the effort. Sometimes God puts us out of our normal routines to see how will we do it? Will we just have Him on the back burner and do something else, or will we make the effort to stay in contact with Him? I learned a lesson. No matter where you are, no matter what you do, you make the time, you take the time to stay in contact with God, and you don't let that slide. So when we look at ourselves, we can talk about prayer.

You know, prayer doesn't come naturally to any of us. In the early days, anyway, we have to make ourselves do those things. We have to put forth the effort. And when we put forth the effort, we know that God blesses us. We feel the closeness with Him. We feel His presence in our mind, and we see and understand things that we didn't before. It's not always easy to study, but we have to make ourselves study. And if you're ever apart from the Bible for a few days, and then you go back to it, you feel that closeness come back again.

You don't ever want to lose that closeness. You make the time, you make the effort to study because that's part of your relationship with God. And so we have to make the effort to do that, and we know we have to make the effort to do that. Fasting is another area, not one of us. Enjoy the day that we say, oh, we're going to fast on that day. And any time I say, I'm going to fast on that day, when that day comes or the day before comes, I can find a million reasons that tomorrow is not a good fast day.

I don't even have to think. They're just all right there lined up. Tomorrow's not a good day, but you know what? You have to make the effort to do it anyway, because fasting isn't an easy thing to do. But we have to do it.

You know what else we have to do on those fast days? We have to make the effort to understand what God wants on those fast days. After all these years, I still don't know that I fast the way that God wants us to fast. When Isaiah 50 AD lays it out, and when I fast, I read those verses and ask God, help me to understand that when I'm fasting, I'm doing it the way that you want it done. That I'm not just doing without food and water for 24 days, because you know what?

I'm thirsty at the end of those days. I may be hungry at the end of that day, but I want it to be a spiritual fast, not just a physical fast. It takes effort. It takes effort to ask God and to be conscious of what you're doing, that you understand and learn what it is that He wants you to learn out of it. It takes effort to seek God. We have to ask Him. It takes effort to examine ourselves, but we must examine ourselves through the eyes of the Bible and not the eyes of those around us or our own eyes that will give ourselves a pat on the back and say, we've done a really good job.

We have to seek God, and it takes effort to do that. It takes effort to repent when God calls us. It's not an easy thing to do to repent, to face yourself and to actually take the time and to repent and turn from your way to God's ways. God's way. And, of course, obedience. That's one of the things we do, right? God gives His Holy Spirit to those who obey. It's not always easy to obey. We have to make the effort to obey, and we have to follow Him in that way.

But if we follow Christ's example and if we look at what Jesus Christ did in some of the men of old, we see they put effort into their lives. Then, like David, he made some huge mistakes in his life. But when God showed him those mistakes and he turned his life around, he put effort into it the rest of the time. He was a man after God's own heart. Daniel did the same thing. It took effort to stand up against the king of Babylon and say, I'm not going to live.

I'm not going to eat what you guys eat. I'm not going to follow your God. I'm going to continue to follow my God. It took effort. On the other hand, you have Solomon, who started off so very, very, very strong. Over the course of time, the forty years of his reign, he began to trust in wealth, he began to trust in everything else.

Then he became a very unsuccessful Christian, if you will, if we can use that term. Some of the men of the Bible, Abraham, Isaac, Daniel, David, we get an A in effort. Solomon, at the end, we get an F in effort. None of us want to have that grade on that scale of what we do.

I want to look today at Nehemiah. We've been reading through, and I hope you've been reading through Nehemiah as part of our local reading program. In Nehemiah, there are a lot of lessons we can learn from him. One of the lessons we can learn from him is the effort it takes to do God's work. You know, Nehemiah was just kind of like you and me. He wasn't in command of the situation. He wasn't the king. He couldn't just go out and do these edicts. He was a cup bearer under King Artaxerxes. He had a calling of God, just like you and I have, a calling from God. He wanted to complete the mission that he was given. He had to put a lot of effort into it. A lot of effort. It just didn't happen to him, just like it doesn't happen to us. God calls us. He wants to give us eternal life. But just because he wants to give us eternal life, and so we say, yes, we want it, does it happen? If we don't put the effort in, the work that God began in you and me doesn't get finished.

If we don't put the effort in, the work that God gave his church to do doesn't get finished.

And if Nehemiah didn't put the effort in, the work God gave him to do wouldn't get finished. So let's go back and let's look at Nehemiah and pick out a few verses here to look at what he did. Nehemiah. And let's begin in chapter 1. Just get the studying here. Nehemiah 1. Verse 1, it introduces him as the author of the book. Verse 2. It says that Hanani, one of his brethren, came with men from Judah. And Nehemiah writing, he says, And I asked them concerning the Jews who had escaped, who had survived the captivity and concerning Jerusalem. You remember from Ezra that there were, after 70 years in captivity, the Jews were allowed to go back and rebuild the temple in Jerusalem. And so several years had passed, and in Ezra the temple was being built, but now years have passed and the work was partially done, but it was just sort of languishing there. It hadn't been completely completed. So Nehemiah asks, What's going on over in Jerusalem? And they said to me, verse 3, The survivors who are left from the captivity in the province are there in great distress and reproach. The wall of Jerusalem is also broken down, and its gates are burned with fire. Not a good situation. They went over there. God sent them over there. They got the edict of the king. They got the okay. Go do it. Kind of just sitting there, not getting done. So it was when I heard these words that I sat down and wept and mourned for many days. I was fasting and praying before the God of heaven. So when he heard this, I mean, it was put in his mind, What's going on in Jerusalem? Where was the status of that work? And he fastened and he prayed about it. He was upset when he heard that it was just sort of there, much like maybe we, if we looked at ourselves honestly, would say, Am I letting God complete the work that is in me? Where am I today compared to where I was last year, five years ago? Am I still wrestling with that problem? And there are some problems we'll wrestle with the rest of our lives. Still have to put the effort into it. Still have to try. But he sat down and he fastened and prayed. What can we do about this? And then he gives in the succeeding verses here in chapter one, a very heartfelt prayer, a very heartfelt prayer, talking about the sins that he has committed, talking about the sins that the nation has committed, asking God to forgive them and asking them to and reminding them that if they would turn to Him, if they would turn to Him, that He would return to Judah as well. And then on the very last verse of 11 there, the very last sentence, it says, Nehemiah was the king's cup heir. He wasn't anyone. That was a great guy. He had a job just like you and I have a job. And he didn't have authority to say, I'm going to take off several months and get this job done. I didn't have the money that he could just say, I'm going to have all the materials and go down there. He was under authority.

And what Nehemiah did was ask God to give him favor in the eyes of that king because he wanted to go and do the work that God wanted him to do. And so he did that. In chapter two, one of the verses that I've looked at for years, you know, and remember about Nehemiah, is that when he came before the king, you'll remember as you read through it that he knew he was going to have to approach the king and ask for some time off and he was going to have to ask for permission to go down there and finish the wall in Jerusalem. And the king was used to seeing his smiling, bright, happy man bring his cup in the morning. That was kind of his job. But this morning he decided he was going to come in or he looked morose and sad. And he knew he was taking a chance because the king didn't like the way he looked.

The king had the power of life and death. And so the king asked him a question and he says, What do you want, Nehemiah? Well, Nehemiah writes here in the last sentence of verse four, so I prayed to the God of heaven. He reads mindful of whose work he was going to do and who it was who was going to be able to open that door for him. And we should remember, when we're in the midst of things, pray to God. Ask him. Ask him about what he wants on and just don't run off on ourselves. And as we look down through chapter two, again, I hope this is a reminder of what you've read in the last few days, you'll see that Nehemiah didn't just come in there and say, Okay, I want permission to go. And then decide he was going to plan on what to do. He had a whole plan of action already for the king.

He went in there and he asked the king, I want to be able to go and I want to go and do this work. The king said, What do you need? He said, I need timber. I need letters of passage. I need all this. He had thought it through. He had put effort into this already.

He wasn't going in there and saying, Give me permission. Oh, now I'll go and look for it. Nehemiah was committed to what God had called him to do. Now we can look at Nehemiah and we can say, Oh, he was a cupbearer under King Artaxerxes. He was there in the time of Jerusalem. God called him for a purpose. God has called you and me for a purpose. Maybe it's not to build the physical temple of Jerusalem, but he is building a temple. He is building a spiritual temple in you and me. He is building a spiritual temple with his people around the world. He is building a temple and he expects you and me to be committed to that purpose. You know, when we put effort into something, it requires or it requires a lot.

We can try all we want, and we have to put that trying into it. But there are choices that we have to make along the way. We have to be committed. We have to be focused. We have to be disciplined. We have to have our focus on what God has called us to. And these other things happen, and we have plenty of other things in our lives, but we have these other things happen. But our focus needs to remain and our effort needs to remain in what God has called us to because he has called you and he has called me to complete a work, just like he has called Nehemiah to complete a work. What Nehemiah encountered when he went to do that work may have surprised him. It shouldn't surprise us because we have the record and from our experiences and our lives we can see what Nehemiah went through as he put forth the effort to do God's will. We have encountered the same thing.

One of the things that I like that Nehemiah did, we find down here in verse 12. All too often when we make a decision, we're going to do this and we're going to put our effort into that. One of the things I remember from some of the doctors I worked with and one of the things they always mention to people who, and some of them worked with people who had to lose a lot of weight, don't go out and announce to your family that you're going to lose weight. Don't go out and tell them, that's not the end result. Just do it. Just take the determination in your life and start doing that and let them see the results rather than you announcing it. This is exactly what Nehemiah did. Look down in verse 12 here of chapter 2. He was there in Jerusalem. He was there to build the wall. He came with a purpose into mine, but he didn't go in with a trumpet and say, I'm here. I'm here to build this wall and this is what we're going to do. Boom, boom, boom. He kind of surveyed the situation behind the scenes. He says, I arose in the night. I and the few men with me. I told no one what my God had put in my heart to do in Jerusalem, nor was there any animal with me except the one on which I rode. And I went out by night through the valley gate to the serpent well and the refuse gate. And I viewed the walls of Jerusalem, which were broken down, and its gates, which were burned with fire. And then he went to these other places. In verse 15, he went up by the night to the valley and viewed the wall. And then I turned back and entered by the valley gate, and so returned. And the officials didn't know where high had gone or what high had done. I hadn't yet told the Jews, the priests, the nobles, the officials, or the others who did the work. He surveyed the situation.

He laid his plans. He determined what he was going to do. Remember? Remember preparing your heart? Remember purposing in your heart? That was what Nehemiah was doing. He had the plan. This is what God wants me to do. Let me see the situation. Let me count the cost.

And let's go do the work. So then he goes and tells them what he's going to do. And introduces us to a couple of characters here in chapter two that were going to do everything they could to disrupt that plan. Because what we find in any effort that we put, any effort to complete the work that God does, there will be those who will try their best to derail you. Any work that is of God, there will always be Satan there to see what he can do to derail you. We weren't called to a life where when we say to God, I will follow you no matter what you say, no matter what confronts me, there will always be something. And that's going to increase the effort that we have to put into it. And Nehemiah was going to face that. Let's go over to chapter four. Chapter four. And we find Nehemiah faced with a challenge here as he begins to do the work, not talk about the work, not talk about what he's going to do, but actually do it. Chapter four, verse one, it happens when Sanballat heard that we were rebuilding the wall. He was furious and indignant and he mocked the Jews. And he spoke before his brethren in the army of Samaria and said, What are these feeble Jews doing? Will they fortify themselves? Will they offer sacrifices? Will they complete it in the day? Will they revive the stones from the heaps of rubbish, stones that are burned? They think they're going to do all that? These guys have come here?

Come on, what kind of work is this? Why are they here and what are they going to do? And so Baya the Ammonite was beside him and he said, Whatever they build, if even a fox goes up on it, she'll break down their stone wall. Come on, these Jews don't know what they're doing. Don't worry about the wall. He was trying to get into their heads. You don't know what you're doing. Come on, Nehemiah, you're a cup there in the king's court. You're not a contractor. You're not a builder. What do you know about building a wall? How can you be leading this enterprise? What about these other Jews? What are their degrees?

What do they have to do? Whatever they build, it's not going to fortify anything. Even a fox is going to be able to stand down that wall and have it fall apart. You know in our lives and in the lives of people God calls, the same thing happens. The same thing happens.

When you go home, and this is remembering for many of you, but I'll talk in the present sense as well for people who are listening on the web and who are coming to the realization that God has a Sabbath day. And that Sabbath day is not the day that most people in this world go to church. And when you went home and you told your family, I'm not going to church on Sunday anymore. I'm going to keep the Sabbath that God has determined. And I'm not going to keep Christmas anymore because that's not one of God's holy days. I'm going to keep the holy days of God. And I'm not going to keep Easter anymore. Instead, I'm going to be eating unleavened bread for seven days, and I'm going to be keeping that festival.

How many mocked? How many laughed? How many said, it doesn't make any difference to God what day you keep? If you don't want to work on the Saturday, don't work on it. Don't go to your job on that way. But whether you keep Sunday holy or Friday holy, every day is holy to God, right? And that can get inside people's minds, and they think, no. There's any number of people in Orlando that we can talk to today that know that the seventh day Sabbath is of the Bible, that there is no, absolutely no basis in any literature, anywhere in the Bible, that there is any day except the Sabbath, and it's one of God's Ten Commandments. Thousands in Orlando. Where are they today? When they went and told their families, they were probably ridiculed. You don't know. It's a different age. You don't have to keep it. God doesn't care. That was for the Jews, even though they know clearly what the Bible says. And they would follow and let themselves be derailed that way. It takes effort. It takes determination.

It takes focus to keep even that one bit of God's law. And people will make you feel that you don't know what you're talking about. They'll make you feel that you're living in ancient society rather than in 2016. It's the same thing they did to Nehemiah. You don't know what you're talking about. That's for the old times, not for the 21st century. God doesn't care. You really think God cares? What God wants is to give everyone eternal life. And that's correct. But only to those who will follow Him and put the effort into that way of life. And so, we find that one of Satan's tactics that we have to work through is don't let ourselves get distracted. Don't let ourselves find our effort in fighting something other than the battle that God has called us to fight. Nehemiah and his troop didn't let that deter him. Down in verse 6, we find that they just kind of kept doing the work that God had called them to. Verse 6, so we built the wall, and the entire wall was joined together up to half its height, for the people had a mind to work. The people had a mind to work. I've asked myself, do I have a mind to work? We should all ask ourselves, do we have a mind to work? Are we building what God wants us to build? Are we doing what God wants us to do? If He was going to give us a grade and effort today, what grade would He give us? What grade would He give me? Not talking about conduct, that's important.

Not talking about scholarship, that's important. What grade would He give us an effort in keeping our effort toward the work of God? These men did. They had a mind to work, and they kept going. Then in verse 7, we find there's another thing. When that didn't work, because all Sanballat and Tabiah wanted to do was interrupt the work of God. They just didn't want it happening. They didn't want that wall built. Now it happened, verse 7, when Sanballat, Tabiah, the Arabs, the Ammonites, the Ashdodites heard that the walls of Jerusalem were being restored and the gaps were beginning to be closed, they became angry. And all of them conspired together to come and attack Jerusalem and create confusion. Isn't that what people do? They got angry. What? They're continuing to work. What? You're still going to go to the church on Sabbath? What? You're not going to be here on Christmas Day to open the presents with us? What? You're going to the Feast of Tabernacles and you might stand losing your job because of something that's in the Bible that no one else in any religion in America is keeping except the church of God that calls themselves the church of God? What? You're going to do that? Then they became angry. And what did they do? They created confusion.

You know, they did the same thing in Jesus Christ time. Jesus Christ is a model example of effort. He was God before He became flesh. You know, He could have come to earth and He could have thought, I was there when the earth was created. I was there when man was created. I was there when all this was put together and the plan was put together. All I have to do is coast through life. I've got God's Holy Spirit. I don't have to do anything else. I will, time comes. I will sacrifice myself and that will be the end of it. If He had taken that approach, and I'm understanding where He was, if He had taken that approach, He probably wouldn't have been our Savior. He put His effort into every day of His life.

He worked at what He did. He had to face all the criticism of people. I mean, the Pharisees of that day called Him Beals above all things to discredit Him. They just wanted to interrupt what He was doing. They didn't like the fact that He was going around healing people. They didn't like the fact that He was going around teaching people from the Bible and teaching them that their traditions were not the commands of God, but that they needed to look in the Bible and follow what God said. He kept going. He kept His focus on what He was there for.

And then they became angry, and then all of a sudden they wanted to kill Him. And they tried to capture Him, and eventually they did kill Him. He didn't let it deter Him.

He didn't get off of the path of what God had called Him to. He just kept going. He knew what His mission was, and He finished it. And He completed it. God's called us to a mission. He's given us a calling, and He wants us to stick with it until the end. And there may be some that are angry, but, you know, confusion, right? Confusion is one of the things that was created out here in Jerusalem. They were angry. They created confusion. There's nothing like confusion to defocus us, is it? And you know we live in a world that is confused today. Every single doctrine that the church teaches, any of you could create a lot of confusion. You can go onto the Internet. You can go onto TV. You can pull up a TV show, and you will find all sorts of confusion about what the Bible really says. We have to put a lot of effort into knowing what the Bible really says and what God really says in this word of truth. Not believing what we might hear on the Internet, not believing unless we go back and prove it in the Word of God and then come and talk about it. Because what the church teaches, and I hope what every minister teaches, is the truth from the Bible.

Without our opinion, not speculation. If there's speculation, it's clearly defined.

Takes effort to know the Word of God. And when there's confusion out there, and there is plenty of religious confusion, we can see right through it and not let it derail us, but keep the effort focused on where it needs to be. Cutting right through it, not allowing it to detract us so that we find all of a sudden all our effort is over here trying to figure out, oh, could this be right? Because you know what? I kind of like this theory.

I kind of like what this has to say. And it's okay to listen, but go back and prove, and keep your effort in the direction that God calls us to. And that's what Nehemiah and his men were faced to do. There's a lot of confusion around there. You know, God's not the author of confusion. Satan is. Satan uses it. Now, we have to focus our effort to keep the confusion away, the effort being in the word that we, as Timothy says, diligently study. Diligently implies a lot of effort that we would put into it. And so, Sanballat, Toviah, and the people of the nations around there, they were there to interrupt the work with all this confusion. But it didn't deter Nehemiah and his men. They just kept on, they just kept on working. In over in Matthew 10, Matthew 10, verse 34, before any of us were baptized, you know, we go through counseling, we talk about repentance, we talk about counting the cost, about what is going to happen, what is likely going to be the reaction of the world to your calling. And Jesus Christ made it clear to all of us that there was going to be anger associated with following Him and confusion as well. Verse 34, Matthew 10, he says, Don't think that I came to bring peace on earth. I didn't come to bring peace, anymore. Choose me. Don't choose friend, don't choose neighbor, don't choose mom, don't choose kid. Choose to follow and keep your eyes pointed in what God wants you to do.

As part of all of our calling, Nehemiah, his calling was to get that wall finished. And he didn't allow himself to get distracted with things, but he kept his focus on finishing the work that God had begun. If we go back to Nehemiah, we see that he did just that.

Despite all the threats, despite all of the confusion, despite all the things that were thrown at them, the work kept going. Chapter 2, Chapter 4. Chapter 4 and verse 10.

This is an interesting verse too. Judah, one of the people working there, said, The strength of the laborers is failing. Hey, Nehemiah, we keep working, we keep working, but we have all these people around us who are angry and who are creating all this confusion.

The strength of the laborers is failing. And there's so much rubbish that we're not able to build the wall. There's so much going on, we can't even focus on what's going on. You know, our lives can become the same way. There's so much going on in them that sometimes we do all those things, but then we forget to focus on the thing that we've been called to. It's very important with our jobs, very important to do what God has called us in that regard to do, to do the best things and the best of our ability, very important to do the things with the family. All those things are priorities, but we can't forget. Can't forget the work of God. And that was one of the things that was happening here. And today we live in a world where we could find ourselves busy with so many things that the word of God, study, prayer, everything could go right out the window, and we wouldn't even know what was happening. We go down to verse 15. Nehemiah kept putting his effort into the work of God. It happened, he says, when our enemies heard that it was known to us and that God had brought their plot to nothing, that all of us returned to the wall, every one to his work. Ah! When the enemy knew, they're not falling for this ploy. It's not working the way we thought. They've got their focus. They're putting their effort into the work of God. They're not putting their effort into fighting us. They're not putting their effort into all these other little side issues. They're putting their effort into the work that God called them to do. They're building this wall. When it became known to them, they gave up. What verse does that remind you of? James 4, right? Resist the devil and he will flee from you. Resist him. Don't give in to his ploys. Don't go into all those situations that will take you away from God and defocusing. I'm spending your time in a lot of places that Satan and others might like you to put your time, but God would like you to keep your focus and put your effort into what his calling is.

And then, in verse 17, they found from that time forward they had to do something. Up until that time, they were just going to work. They had these things happen to them, but from that time forward they had to add something to their daily routine. Those who built on the wall, in verse 17, and those who carried burdens, loath themselves so that with one hand they worked a construction, and with the other hand they held a weapon. Every one of the builders had his sword girded to his side as he built, and the one who sounded the trumpet was beside me. They had to keep doing the work of God. And unfortunately, the world they lived in, they had to have a weapon with them so that they could fend off the people who would detract from them, or who would distract them, or who would threaten them, or who would make the threats. That should remind you of something that Paul said as well. You know, in Ephesians 6, where we've daily put on the armor of God, because we have to fight the fiery darts of Satan, but let's go over to 2 Corinthians. 2 Corinthians 10. 2 Corinthians 10. And verse 4. Paul writes, The weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty in God, for pulling down strongholds, those things in our minds that God has to remove, casting down arguments in every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God, every high thing, every internet message of a religion that doesn't preach God's truth, every TV evangelist that doesn't preach God's truth, every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God, bringing every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ. Think it takes effort to bring every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ? That takes effort. That takes effort.

Just doesn't happen automatically. Doesn't happen just because you repent and are baptized.

It takes effort. You have to purpose in your heart to do it. You have to do it. God will make it happen, but He has to see that we would put the effort into it.

Let's go back to Nehemiah. Nehemiah 5. The enemies from without couldn't thwart the work on the wall. It just kept going. Nehemiah and his men, Nehemiah kept them focused.

Nehemiah told them where their effort needed to be. They kept working. They kept focusing.

They kept their eyes on the goal that was there. And when Satan saw that enemies from without weren't going to be able to interrupt this work, tried a new ploy, created some strike within. There was a great outcry of the people and their wives against their Jewish brethren. There were those who said, We, our sons, our daughters, are many. Therefore, let us get grain that we may eat and live. There were also some who said we've mortgaged our lands and vineyards and houses that we might buy grain because of the famine. There were those who said we borrowed money for the king's tax on our lands and vineyards.

But now our flesh is as the flesh of our brethren. Our children is their children.

And indeed, we are forcing our sons and our daughters to be slaves. And some of our daughters have been brought into slavery. It's not in our power to redeem them, for other men have our lands and vineyards.

Okay, now we've got this strike. What's going on isn't fair. It might have been the law of the land. It might have been the things that people were causing these fortunes or these mortgages and these slaves. It might have been okay, but it was interrupting the work. And Nehemiah heard this, and he heard what was going on and thought this was creating confusion. Where is this coming from? Our job is to build this wall, to finish the work that God sent us here to do. And now we've got this coming up on us. So Nehemiah, appropriately in verse 6, he was angry when he heard their outcry and these words. We don't need this.

We're not here to do this. We are here not for our own personal profit. We're not here for our own personal gain. We're not here to promote ourselves. We're here to do the work that God gave us to do. And he began to confront the people. And he rebuked the leaders of that time, and he called them into...he called them and he said, What are we doing?

Are we here for our profit, or are we here to do God's work?

He laid it out for them. He laid it out for them and didn't allow them to continue in that way. He didn't listen to all the chatter about, Well, the law says we can do this and this. Let's get the landscape clear here. We're all here in this together, he says. Let's get this wall built. That's what I'm here for. That's what you're here for. Let's get the job done. And they did it. You know, sometimes we all need to be reminded of what we are here for, what the work that God called us to do is, individually and collectively.

And sometimes rebukes happen and we have to be reminded. Most of the times I think God rebukes us and reminds us what we're here for and what we're to be about. That's His business and not ours. Nehemiah did that. It reminds me of Acts. Acts 28. No, Acts 20.

Keep your finger there and Nehemiah will be back there in another minute. In the New Testament church and certainly in our lives today, we know that sometimes there's confusion, problems that come from within. If there's an attack from the outside, we stand up for what God believes or what God would have us believe, what He's led us to believe. Sometimes when the attack comes from within, we don't see it coming. And yet it's there. And yet it's there. It's one of Satan's tactics. In verse 29 of Acts 20, Paul knew this. He was leaving the church at Ephesus. He called her attention to this. He says, I know this. After my departure, savage wolves will come in among you, not sparing the flock. Also from among yourselves, men will rise up, speaking perverse things, to draw away the disciples after themselves.

Therefore watch, he says, and remember that for three years I didn't cease to warn everyone, night and day with tears. You keep the efforts in there, but understand this is what's going to happen. There will be people that rise up from among you, that will try to take people away, that will have other ideas, pet ideas, theories that they're going to want to espouse, their purpose is to follow people or to have people follow them rather than people following God and the clear precepts of His law. Anyone who's been around the while knows that that's happened. Anyone that's been around the while knows that the same thing Nehemiah faced, God's church is faced. And so, the work still goes on. We can't let those things deter us, distract us, we just keep moving the work forward as God leads us. And that's exactly what Nehemiah did. It can create a lot of confusion, and I know there was a lot of confusion when some of those things happened. There was a lot of distraction, a lot of commotion, a lot of chatter, a lot of conversation, because we are humans and we listen to those things and we talk about those things, and it's okay to talk about them, but never to lose focus on what God would have us do. And I would like to say it will never happen again before Christ returns. I don't know that. But remember Nehemiah, if it ever happens, to keep your focus on God, and don't ever let your effort be distracted to some issue that's different than what God would have you do. Be aware of what God wants and see through a difference between what He wants and what men want. If we go back to Nehemiah, we were in chapter 5, we were in chapter 5, Nehemiah rebuked them. If you recall, they had all this internal strife that was going on around there.

The people listened. The people listened. They mended their ways. In verse 13, Nehemiah says, verse 12, the people said, you know what, you're right, Nehemiah, we will restore it. We're going to not require anything from Him. We're going to go on with the work. Then verse 13, they took out the fold of my garment and said, so may God shake out each man from his house and from his property who doesn't perform this promise. Even thus may He be shaken out and emptied. And all the assembly said, Amen, and praise the eternal. And the people did according to this promise. They had a mind to work. They had a mind to get the job done. They had a mind to finish the work that God had given them to do. And they kept going. And the plan of Satan was thwarted and internal strife didn't detract them from what they were doing. But that wasn't the end.

In chapter 6, we find Sanballat and a couple others trying another tactic to see if they could derail Nehemiah's effort. It happened, verse 1, chapter 6, when Sanballat, Tabbiah, Gesham the Arab, and the rest of our enemies heard that I had rebuilt the wall and that there were no breaks left in it, though at that time I had not hung the doors and the gates. That Sanballat and Gesham sent to me, saying, Come, let us meet together among the villages in the plain of Ono.

But he knew they thought to do me harm. They'd never been for us before. All they did was try to disrupt the process and the job. They mocked it. They created confusion. They were angry. They were hostile. They didn't. They just threatened that they were going to kill us, so much so that we had to carry weapons to protect ourselves. And now they want to meet with me.

He didn't fall prey to pride, flattery, or, ha, they've seen what I've done. He was waiting, maybe, to see if there was a fruit in them, but he didn't see that. So he decided he wasn't going to let that and put his effort away from finishing the job and go meet with them. He was going to keep working the way he did. So, verse 3, I sent messengers with them, saying, I'm doing a great work. I can't come down. Why should the work cease? While I leave it and go down to you, I won't let you interrupt what God is working.

I was going to say something. I'm not going to say it. Okay. But they sent me, verse 4, this message four times, and I answered them in the same manner. They weren't going to be interrupted. They were going to keep doing what God had called them to. Then Sanballat changed his tactic. Well, he's not falling for it. Let me do something else here. Sanballat sent his servant to me as before, the fifth time, with an open letter in his hand. In it was written.

It's reported among the nations, and Geshem says, that you and the Jews plan to rebel.

Therefore, according to these rumors, you are rebuilding the wall, that you may be their king.

And you've also appointed prophets to proclaim concerning you in Jerusalem, saying, there's a king in Judah. Now these matters will be reported to the king.

So come, therefore, and let us consult together. Ah, he's added a twist to it. That's what you're about, right, Nehemiah? You just want to be king in Jerusalem. No basis to it.

Hey, Nehemiah, you know what we've heard? Geshem even says, we think you want to be king.

You've got an ulterior purpose here, Nehemiah.

Now, Nehemiah saw right through it, and he answered in verse 8, nothing that you have say is true. But probably if someone accused me of that, I would probably pick up the phone and we'd have a conversation.

Because that would probably have gotten my attention. And that's probably happened to all of you, because one of the tactics that Satan will use is gossip. If you can't stop the work by hostility, by mocking, by creating confusion, if you can't stop the work by creating confusion within and disruption from within, well, you know what? Why don't you just discredit the leader? Why don't you say, Nehemiah, ha, we know what you're about. You're not there out of goodwill. You're not there just because you want to finish the work. You're there because you want to be king. You're a cupbearer, and you see this is a route to being king.

Now, in our own lives, we've seen that. There's been people of God who are absolutely maligned. The Internet is a tremendous tool, and people who have done God's work in the past, you can go on and you can find any kind of stories about them, just like they were trying to write about Nehemiah. If we can stop the work by discrediting the leader, we will.

And sadly, it's the same thing happens today. Sadly, the same thing could happen in the future.

If we can just discredit the leader, we can stop the work. The wall won't be built.

It won't be finished. Nehemiah didn't let it deter him. And you know what? It should never deter you. The work of God is not about any one man. Nehemiah knew that. He was there to do the job that God had called him to do, but the work wasn't about Nehemiah. It was about what God wanted.

And Nehemiah didn't fall prey to it. He just denied it and said there was absolutely no basis to it.

You know, I talk about how people can be discredited. Even on the Internet, you know, I find that I read things and someone will say, you need to read this over there on the Internet. And I have the advantage of going to the home office and spending some time out there.

I sit in on the council meetings. I hear the doctrinal reports. And then I read something on the Internet, and it has absolutely no basis in anything I have ever heard that has ever been mentioned. Absolutely no basis whatsoever. And I can honestly say there's no basis to it. This is just pure conjecture. There is nothing to it. It's exactly what these people were doing to Nehemiah.

There was no basis to what they said. They just created it. The same thing happens today.

Pay attention to where the work is. Pay attention to what's going on. Pay attention to fruits. Pay attention that you are doing the job that God wants you to do in your own personal lives and praying that His work would get done in this lifetime. His greater work that includes you and me, but it's greater work than just you and me.

Nehemiah used Matthew 18-15 well as he was going through life. When he had to confront the people in Jerusalem during the internal strife, he used Matthew 18-15. He didn't go behind the door. He went and took it right to him and said, This is what God says to do. What are we here for? The people listened. Matthew 18-15. If you hear things, if you want to talk about things, if you see things happening, bring it to the person. You know what Matthew... in case you don't, let's turn to Matthew 18-15. Matthew 18 verse 15. If your brother sins against you, go and tell him his fault between you and him alone. If he hears you, you gain your brother. So if you hear something, ask. Don't just believe it. Bring it forward and ask. And the people will tell you the truth.

I hope. And if they don't, then if it's been some sin that you bring to their attention that keeps going on, then it says, bring it to the church. You know, in God's way, He puts His way in there for us to follow. And it works if we use it. If we all have the right attitude, if we're all in this together, if we're all here because we want the work of God to be done because we're here to do His business, and if we're not worried about being so politically correct that we certainly couldn't ever say something to someone that would offend them, which should not deliberately offend, but you know, sometimes we have to go and just say, this is what I've heard. Is it true? Don't let it spin around. Don't let it detract you. Don't put your effort into finding out and talking about it. Put your effort into learning the truth and then get on with the work that God has given us to do. That's exactly what Nehemiah did. He did not let that detract him. He kept his effort into what was going on. We go back to Nehemiah 6.

And using a verse and words that we could use even in today's language. I'm not saying no one should bring it. You hear something, bring it up. And sometimes there is something to it that has to be corrected. You know, we're all men and there are mistakes we make, and if we make mistakes, we should be men enough to correct them. Verse 8, when all these things were being said about Nehemiah, he said, no such things as you say are being done. You invent them in your own heart. For they were just trying to make us afraid. Their purpose being their hands will be weakened in the work and it will not be done. That's what the purpose of these things are.

Disrupt the work of God. Nehemiah kept working. Down in verse 15 says, the wall was finished.

The wall was finished on the 25th day of Elul in 52 days. And in 52 days, that work got done.

It had languished for years. It had just sat there without anyone really paying attention to it.

And in 52 days, when Nehemiah went in and he put his effort into following what God had said, following the call that God had given them, not allowing himself to be distracted. He gets an A for effort. He gets an A for conduct as well. And he gets an A for scholarship because he applied what he knew of what God had given him to do and he applied it in his life. And we need to be sure that we are putting forth that effort. That when God looks at us, he would give us an A for effort.

And oftentimes, when we put forth the effort led by God, the conduct should follow, right?

Conduct should follow. We should be examples of God's way of life at work, at school, in the neighborhood, in our neighborhood association, certainly at church.

And the scholarship should be there, too, if we're really putting forth the effort because we learn the Bible, we see the things, and they'll say, oh, that happened 3,000 years ago. How does that happen? A play of the type to us? Because it does. We can see our lives in the pages of these men that we read about. And we learn and we can follow the same words that God has given us.

You know, Paul would say, God would say, be diligent. Be diligent in your calling.

Philippians 1.6 says, He will finish. He will finish the work that He has begun in all of us.

He'll finish the work that He's begun in you. He'll finish the work that He's begun in me.

He'll finish the work that He's begun in the church. And we have to put forth the effort.

Make sure you are putting forth the effort. It takes effort to be in the kingdom of God.

It's a gift from Him, but it takes effort to make sure you make that grade in effort.